Shoo Fly

Two days ago Liliana discovered a fly. I don't know if it was the first fly she ever saw or just the first time she actually noticed a fly. Either way- she had a ball chasing the fly around the room, trying to get it when it landed and giggling when she couldn't catch it. It was the cutest thing to watch. Normally I shoo flies away because they are annoying and here is my daughter taking such delight in this little creature.

So, today another fly appeared. I found myself excited to see it so that Liliana and I could try to play catch the fly and laugh together. Funny how my concepts of flies have changed...

Neighbors Part 2

Ok seriously, I don't know why God keeps bringing these amazing neighbors our way, but he does.

We met another young family 2 buildings over. This afternoon they were going to the park with their 2 kids, so popped by our apartment to see if we wanted to join them. We headed out and played at the park, then they invited us for dinner on the way back. AJ is Italian, so he made his special sauce and we had fresh pasta that they bought at the farmer's market yesterday. The kids had so much fun playing, we ate amazing food, drank merlot, had good conversation. It was such a fun and spontaneous afternoon and evening. So refreshing.

Leaving my family in St. Louis to move to Madison has been a sacrifice, but then when I am surrounded with amazing neighbors I see God meeting me in new ways. I'm thankful for the people in our community and feel like God completely hand picked where we live.

highlights of my week

-hearing my daughter say "i love you" for the first time. absolutely AMAZING!

- going to boston for a summit and sitting in a room with brilliant leaders processing how to be relevant with the message of Jesus. it was so challenging and empowering at the same time

- eating a souvlaki that was so good it reminded me of going to the souvlaki stands in greece with my cousin dimitra

- meeting ed on my flight home. he was so surprised i am a pastor and we had a great conversation about jesus and church, even though he is pretty turned off by religion. at the end he actually asked me to pray to my "Buddy" to help him have faith

- walking around the wisconsin dells with my family and checking out all the tourist attractions. who knew i lived less than an hour away from all that hoopla?

- getting a free $10 gas card with my grocery store purchase today

- reading a Mickey book to Liliana. on one of the pages there was a picture of someone waving. she reached over to the book and gave the picture a high five and said "Five". (it looked like any other high 5 to her)

- coming home to a clean house the other day- fresh sheets on bed, carpets vacuumed, kitchen scrubbed. i love my hubby!

Happy Adoption Day

Although we had Liliana with us in July, August 4th is the official day we signed our adoption papers. So Chris and I decided that we wanted to make a tradition each year to celebrate Adoption Day. We are so thankful for this day and the joy of finally having Liliana as part of our family.

So we took a little day trip to Peck's Farm. It is in a small town outside Madison with absolutely beautiful views. Peck's Farm has goats, deer, ducks, fish and pigs you can feed and Liliana had so much fun. I love seeing the joy on her face when she saw all the animals. She was not afraid at all to reach out her hand to feed them and just giggled when they took the corn from her hand.

They have a little shop with yummy goods, and we found Sprecher's soda. A friend told me about this local WI soda- the flavor she told me about was cran-cherry soda with ginseng. Her sister (aka Alice in Dairyland) is this year's WI representative for promoting local foods and so she was promoting using this soda to make floats. So we picked up some vanilla bean ice cream and gave it a try. YUMMY! I never would have tried it if Wendy hadn't recommended it b/c it kind of sounded like a gross flavor. But it was so good. We don't usually give Liliana sugar, but we gave her a few bites of ice cream. She calls it "cold" instead of ice cream. "More cold, more cold" she kept saying.

I wrote several pages in my journal today about Liliana. I can hardly believe it has just been one year since she has been in our life. I can't even begin to picture life without her... she has helped me appreciate life in a way only a child can. I love her and am so thankful God has finally let me enjoy the beauty of motherhood. What a precious gift to be celebrated.

Happy Adoption Day Liliana Jae!!